Navigating the Future: Essential Characteristics and Strategies for Leaders

In an ever-changing world filled with uncertainty, business executives often grapple with the responsibility of anticipating and adapting to emerging trends and technologies. In this article I aim to provide guidance on how to focus on the most critical elements in the age of digital transformation, as well as how to cultivate a forward-thinking mindset.

My first piece of advice is to prioritize what matters most. Amidst the noise and distractions, it's crucial to identify the most important factors for your organization. As Donald P. Coduto wisely said, "The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing." Embrace this principle to maintain focus and ensure success.

Understand the game you are competing in.  Understand your competition.  Master the rules of digital transformation. To excel in today's competitive landscape, it's essential to understand the dynamics of the digital age. Key elements to consider include:

• Data as the modern commercial battlefield
• The pursuit of information dominance
• The importance of optimized information logistics systems
• The value of speed, analytics, and operational tempos
• The necessity of real-time operational tempos
• The competitive edge of quick data analysis and action
• The exponential increase in competitive advantages through data-driven strategies
• The benefits of situational awareness in innovation and efficiency
• The growing economic value and innovation opportunities through data collection and analysis
• The diminishing value of data over time and the importance of timely utilization
• The multiplier effect of contextual information and timely delivery
• The emphasis on digital twin capabilities and strategic information use over sheer size

The businesses of tomorrow will compete on decision-making.  To win, decisions must increasingly be automated.  As the world becomes increasingly data-driven, organizations that automate decision-making processes will dominate. Invest in technologies that streamline and enhance these processes to stay ahead of the competition.

Leaders must focus on and cultivate a "futuristic mindset." Rather than attempting to understand every emerging trend and technology, executives should focus on developing the essential characteristics of a forward-thinking mindset. This approach allows leaders to effectively navigate and adapt to the evolving digital landscape.  The following are some of the essential characteristics focus on.

1. Embrace data and AI: Leverage data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to gain insights, make better decisions, and enhance efficiency.
2. Automate processes: Explore and implement automation to improve your business and customer experience.
3. Capture and codify expertise: Record and digitize human knowledge for use in automation and decision-making.
4. Enhance visibility and information access: Utilize technology to gain better insights, situational awareness, and decision-making capabilities.
5. Adopt digital twins: Use digital twins for remote sensing, action, and scenario simulations.
6. Use networks to innovate: Upgrade your strategies, business models and user experiences as networks enabled new capabilities.
7. Align strategies with technology: Ensure your strategies evolve in tandem with emerging technologies and customer expectations.
8. Understand and navigate time dimensions: Balance human, digital, and future time to optimize performance and prepare for the future.
9. Encourage innovation and adaptability: Foster a culture of innovation and adaptability to maintain a competitive edge.
10. Focus on customer experience: Understand customer interactions and design inspiring journeys for them.
11. Define your purpose: Develop an authentic and inspiring purpose to motivate employees, customers, and stakeholders.
12. Build and engage with ecosystems: Collaborate with partners and stakeholders within your industry ecosystem to create more value.
13. Prioritize learning and adaptability: Continuously learn about and adapt to new technologies and trends.
14. Simplify processes: Reduce complexity to improve agility, speed and innovation.
15. Assess and adapt to future scenarios: Utilize frameworks and models to anticipate future changes and adapt accordingly.
16. Consider generational perspectives: Understand and cater to the different perspectives of each generation.
17. Improve human experiences: Strive to make the workplace and world more fulfilling for human beings.
18. Foster purposeful thinking: Encourage and invest in thoughtful decision-making and innovation within your organization.
19. Establish a unifying doctrine: Develop guiding principles to unify your organization and provide a basis for action.

To wrap things up, leaders must adapt to the rapidly evolving landscape by leveraging emerging technologies and reevaluating their strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Embracing data-driven insights, automation, and AI will be essential for making informed decisions and enhancing customer experiences. Moreover, fostering a culture of innovation, understanding the importance of purpose, and prioritizing human flourishing will ensure that organizations remain resilient in the face of change. By incorporating these 19 key concepts into their strategic approach, leaders can most effectively navigate the complexities of the digital era and harness the potential of future technologies for the benefit of their stakeholders and the broader ecosystem.

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Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

GPT-4 for Executives

I feel like a kid with a new bike.  GPT-4 is opening up so many new avenues for discoveries!  In fact, our Future of Business team here at TCS now has weekly trainings and discussions on how GPT-4 works, and how best to use it.  I am just beginning my learning journey, but already some things are clear. GPT-4 has an enormous amount of useful knowledge if you know how to find it.  It's mostly common sense, but here are some helpful things I am recognizing.

1. Learn the right way to ask questions.  The better and more specific your questions are the better the answers.  That seems basic, but asking GPT-4 a list of similar questions will quickly show you which ones work better.
2. Tell GPT-4 who it is before it answers a question, e.g., GPT-4, you are a data scientist, or you are a bioengineering scientist, or you are a fireman.  Giving GPT-4 a personna gives it a POV (point of view) to answer question from a specific perspective.
3. Understand how to frame questions based on logical arguments and frameworks.  
4. The paid subscription version of GPT-4 remembers your previous chats/conversations, so you can go back to a discussion you had last week, and ask GPT-4 to expand on its answers.  It archives your conversations for future reference.
5. GPT-4 is good at finding your knowledge blind spots.  You might think you understand a subject, but you can ask GPT-4 to help you create checklists of things that are often overlooked, or that only experienced experts would know about a subject.  The lists often reveals things not previously considered.  This enables one to fill in the blind spots.
6. You can combine questions and personas to get fascinating answers.  For example, GPT-4 is both a futurist and a fireman writing an essay on the future of firefighting from Jeeps.  What things would be important to a firefighter that drives a Jeep deep into the mountains?  These endless combinations make for stimulating conversations with your family and friends.
7. You can also ask GPT-4 to create a counter argument.  How would those that are opposed to argument #1, counter it?
8. You can also ask GPT-4 to take the persona of your competition.  How might my competition respond if I launched a new product that did xyz in this market?  

Hopefully, your creative juices are flowing and you can see how nearly every position in an organization where decision-making is important could benefit from having their own subscription.

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Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mindsets, Skills and Human-AI Pairing

Digital Mindset

This article was created in collaboration with ChatGPT, Dall-e, and myself.

As organizations continue to undergo digital transformation, leaders must adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Here are some essential mindset attributes that leaders need today:

• Agility: In the rapidly changing digital landscape, leaders must be agile and able to pivot quickly to keep up with market demands and emerging technologies.
• Customer-centricity: A customer-centric mindset is crucial in today's digital world. Leaders must understand their customers' needs and preferences and use digital tools to create a seamless customer experience.
• Growth mindset: Leaders must have a growth mindset and be willing to learn and experiment. They must be open to new ideas and technologies and willing to take risks to drive innovation.
• Collaboration: Digital transformation requires collaboration across teams and departments. Leaders must foster a culture of collaboration and encourage cross-functional teams to work together.
• Data-driven decision-making: Data is at the heart of digital transformation. Leaders must be comfortable with data and use it to make informed decisions and drive business outcomes.
• Digital fluency: Leaders must be digitally fluent and have a good understanding of emerging technologies. They must stay up to date with the latest trends and be able to identify opportunities for their organization.
• Empathy: In the digital age, leaders must also have empathy and emotional intelligence. They must be able to connect with their employees and understand their needs and concerns, especially in remote and hybrid work environments.

By adopting these essential mindset attributes, leaders can help their organizations navigate the complex digital landscape and achieve long-term success.

While leaders possess various skills that enable them to drive their organizations to success, there are several skills that are crucial to succeed in the future that are not adequately present among leaders today. Some of these skills include:

• Digital Literacy: The digital age is here, and leaders who are not tech-savvy may find it challenging to navigate the complexities of digital transformation. Leaders must develop digital literacy and be familiar with emerging technologies that are driving innovation and transforming industries.
• Cultural Intelligence: With globalization, leaders need to have cultural intelligence to understand the diverse cultures that exist across the world. Leaders who have cultural intelligence can successfully collaborate across borders, understand customers' needs in different countries, and effectively lead teams from different backgrounds.
• Creativity: In the future, leaders who can think creatively and find innovative solutions to complex challenges will have a competitive advantage. Leaders who possess creativity and have the ability to ideate, brainstorm and iterate will drive innovation in their organizations.
• Emotional Intelligence: In the future, leaders who can empathize and connect with their employees will be more successful. Leaders who possess emotional intelligence can build trust, create a culture of collaboration, and motivate their teams to achieve their goals.
• Adaptability: With the rate of change increasing in the world, leaders must be adaptable and willing to change course quickly to stay ahead of the competition. Leaders who are adaptable can pivot and transform their organizations in the face of unexpected changes, such as economic downturns, technological advancements or pandemics.

By developing these skills, leaders can prepare themselves for the future, navigate the complexities of the ever-evolving business environment and drive success in their organizations.

As we move forward into an increasingly digital and fast-paced world, there are several new skills that leaders will need to master over the next 5 years. These skills include:

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Skills: Leaders need to be able to understand and utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve business operations, automate processes, and create new products and services.
• Cybersecurity Skills: As the number of cyber threats continues to rise, leaders must understand cybersecurity best practices and implement them to protect their organization's data, systems, and networks.
• Sustainability Skills: With the increasing focus on sustainability and reducing carbon footprints, leaders must have the skills to design and implement sustainable practices in their organizations.
• Remote Work and Collaboration Skills: As remote work becomes more common, leaders must be able to manage remote teams effectively and use digital tools to collaborate with employees and stakeholders.
• Creativity and Innovation Skills: The future will require leaders to think creatively and innovatively to develop new solutions to complex problems and create new products and services.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Skills: Leaders must develop skills to lead diverse teams and foster an inclusive workplace. They must also understand the importance of equity in the workplace and create policies and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all employees.
• Agile and Lean Methodologies: The future will require leaders to implement agile and lean methodologies to enable their organizations to pivot and adapt to changes quickly.

By developing these skills, leaders can stay ahead of the curve and help their organizations succeed in the ever-changing business landscape of the future.

As the business landscape evolves, several new and lesser known skills will become more important:

• Data Storytelling: As data becomes more prevalent in decision-making, leaders who can effectively communicate data insights through storytelling will have a competitive advantage.
• Design Thinking: Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that focuses on empathy, creativity, and iteration. Leaders who can implement design thinking in their organizations can generate new and innovative solutions to complex problems.
• Cognitive Flexibility: Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch between different ways of thinking and adapt to new situations quickly. Leaders who possess cognitive flexibility can pivot and change course easily in response to unexpected changes.
• Digital Ethics: As the use of technology continues to increase, leaders must understand the ethical implications of their actions and the impact of technology on society. Leaders who prioritize digital ethics can build trust with their customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
• Psychological Safety: Psychological safety is the belief that one can speak up without fear of retaliation or negative consequences. Leaders who prioritize psychological safety can create a culture of open communication and collaboration, leading to improved performance and employee satisfaction.
• Network and Ecosystem Building: Leaders who can build and maintain relationships across industries, organizations, and geographies can leverage these connections to drive innovation and create new opportunities for their organizations.

By developing these lesser-known skills, leaders can differentiate themselves from the competition and better position their organizations for success in the future.

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Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Decision-Making, Complexity, Kill Chains and OODA

New Technologies are important, but not as important as new thinking. ~ Christian Brose

Today, it is more critical than ever for our leaders to understand how to make good decisions, fast. They must understand in a formal way what that takes. Leaders must have an optimized information logistics system that can help them gain an understanding of what is happening around them as fast as possible.  Any kind of friction that delays relevant information from being captured, transmitted, analyzed and reported hinders the ability to make decisions and act (decision-action loop).

Precision as a Competitive Advantage

Throughout history military leaders have suffered from a lack of knowledge.  They often were desperately searching through the "fog of war" to find the answers to seven key questions:

1. Where are my enemies?
2. Where are my own forces?
3. Where are my allies?
4. Where are everyone's supplies, materials and equipment?
5. What condition are they in?
6. What capabilities are available at a given time and location?
7. What are the location and environmental conditions that might degrade capabilities?

These great “unknowns” impacted the strategies and tactics leaders used and the results of battles throughout history.  Leaders were forced to expend massive amounts of resources just defending themselves against the inherent risks of these unknowns.  

While military leaders of the past were handicapped by a lack of tools for gathering insights and intelligence, today we have many. With sensors of all kinds, wireless and satellite networks, mobile technologies, drones, analytics and artificial intelligence the “fog of war” can be greatly reduced.  Precise, real-time data from around the globe can be instantly aggregated, analyzed and results distributed to all relevant groups nearly instantaneously through network centric operations.  The resulting reduction of unknowns, releases leaders and resources to be focused more on strategies and solving problems based on knowns.   This is a monumental development in history.

Sensors extend our senses beyond our physical reach and act as our globally distributed digital nerves. These new capabilities significantly impact how businesses can operate, and offer new opportunities for competitive advantages for business leaders.

W. Edwards Deming, the father of quality improvement, once said, “The biggest problems are where people don't realize they have one in the first place.”  These “blind spots” – the unknown status of a process, schedule, delivery or available resource, for example – should be a relic of the past. Today, we have the ability to remove conjecture and work with precise data.

Many companies have yet to evolve from legacy business models based on the “unknown and imprecise” and continue to throw good money after bad by following "estimate-based" models. Many companies have yet to implement a comprehensive digital nervous systems.  As a result, these organizations have yet to update their strategies and tactics to support new models of real-time precision. Ignoring today’s “revolution in precision” is unacceptable, and would be like a manufacturer ignoring the “continuous quality improvement” movement in manufacturing. Leaders must recognize both the micro and the macro-trends impacting their markets.

Deming also said, “It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.” Taking advantage of precision is a must if surviving is in your plan. As automation increases due to advances in sensors, bandwidth, artificial intelligence, algorithms and machine learning, precision becomes not only possible, but necessary.

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

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Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

A Pandemic Inspired Tsunami of Channel Switching

In Boise, Idaho our local downtown retail chocolate shop, “The Chocolate Bar” transitioned into a chocolate factory and direct delivery service seemingly overnight as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  We have also seen other stores quickly reacting.  Costco now limits the number of shoppers inside their stores, while dramatically ramping up online ordering with home deliveries.  Whole Foods is now providing three ways of shopping locally: in-store shopping, online ordering with drive through pick-up and online ordering with home delivery.  All of these new and expanded options represent fast transitions to new or additional sales channels.

Fast transitions, or what military strategists often refer to as “fast transients,” are the ability to quickly transition from one position to another.  Today we are seeing examples of fast transitioning across many different areas including retail stores, restaurants and businesses as they attempt to meet their customers where they are.  In a recent interview my colleague, Rich Sherman, Senior Fellow, Supply Chain Centre of Excellence at Tata Consultancy Services called this, “Channel Switching.”

Pandemic Resilience is Knowing When to Quit

Thomas Edison

“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be a more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks." ~ Warren Buffet

Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties.  It doesn’t, however, require you to return to a previous state.  Often the fastest way to recover is to quit and start again.  Think of a jeep climbing a steep muddy hillside.  Mid-way up the hill, tires spinning it comes to a stop.  In this situation your choice is often limited to staying in the same spot spinning your wheels or quitting and trying again.  Life often provides us with similar choices, and the COVID-19 pandemic will force many businesses to face this decision.  

Let’s talk about the role quitting plays in resilience.  As a youth I was taught that with enough hard work, belief and long hours anything could be accomplished.  Now as a veteran high-tech executive with thirty plus years of experience I no longer hold that maxim to be true.  Some businesses are just bad ideas.  Some good ideas are before their time.  Sometimes people in leadership positions shouldn’t be.  Some ideas just run out of money before they get to market.  Some good ideas just can’t rise above the noise and fade off into oblivion.  Sometimes pandemics happen.

Leadership and Mental Biases in a Pandemic

The global magazine, Foreign Policy, has compiled a list of things that kill more people than sharks - trampolines, roller coasters, vending machines and furniture/TVs:  In fact more than 26 people die every year after being crushed by furniture/TVs, and only an average of six people die each year from shark attacks.  With these numbers there should be an entire week dedicated to furniture/TV attacks on Discovery Channel.

Humans are not very good at analyzing risk.  We are all afraid of sharks, but never give our furniture a second look.  We all come with biases, prejudices, paradigms, different education levels and viewpoints that influence and filter the way we think.  This is all before we consider normalcy bias.  Here is what Wikipedia says about normalcy bias, "It is a tendency for people to believe that things will function in the future the way they normally have functioned in the past, and therefore we underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects."  It's reported that 70% of people display normalcy bias during disasters.  It's what makes people reach for their laptops and suitcases when they exit a plane during a serious emergency.

Kevin Benedict's 15 Strategies for Career Advancement in 2019

From time to time people have asked me for career advice. I certainly don't have all the answers, but here is my best advice from 33-years in high tech.

Kevin Benedict’s 15 Strategies for Career Advancement:

1.     Be an Expert - Create opportunities to be recognized by your employer’s leadership team. Become an expert in your field. Experts get recognized for their contributions by their communities, industries and employers. Be the person that has read more books, studied more industry reports, attended more training classes and networked with more experts. Become THE expert.

2.     Contribute Content – Product, marketing and sales organizations are always desperate for more content - content that informs, educates, influences, advises and explains. If you contribute content that helps different departments achieve their objectives you will be a hero in the company.

3.     Carry a Load – Step up and take responsibility for tasks and projects and follow through. The world needs people, and will promote people, that are willing to carry a load.

4.     Build a Network – As your network of contacts grows, so will your insights into more industries and businesses, trends, sales and career opportunities. Don’t be lazy and make excuses to not be on LinkedIn and other business oriented social media platforms. It’s important to your career.

5.     Generate Leads – All for-profit companies want more qualified leads. If you bring qualified sales leads to your company via your network and industry contributions, they will be VERY impressed! Find ways to be active in your target markets. Attend industry events, meet potential customers, contribute to online discussion groups, publish “how to” articles, etc., all for the purpose of creating more opportunities for discussions.

6.     Seek Strategies – Purposefully look for and research ideas and strategies successfully applied in different industries, markets and geographies. Study a wide variety of use cases, and ask yourself how they could be abstracted and applied in your company. Genius is often the reapplication of an existing idea or strategy in a new way.

7.     Understand Systems, Markets and Processes – In today’s fast changing world it is highly likely you will change jobs, industries and careers routinely. The best way to prepare for the unknown is to understand how organizations, industries, markets and companies operate. With this understanding you can quickly fit into new environments and roles.

8.     Innovate – Be the innovator not the resistor. New investments, growth and business expansions rarely come from traditional legacy environments, rather they come from the new and unproven. Be the person studying the latest technologies, trends and strategies. Find reasons to support new innovations, business models and strategies, not excuses to resist them.

9.     Share – Having a brain full of knowledge and expertise is wasted unless shared and applied. Be the person always willing to teach, mentor, contribute and apply.

10.  Be Enthusiastic – Be the person always eager to help, and always looking for new ways to succeed, improve and to meet team objectives with a positive attitude.

11.  Personal Development – Education and experience might initially open doors, but having the right tools are required to advance in your career. These tools include things like learning to write well, speak in public, write a business plan, create and manage a budget, organize and run a meeting, lead a team, and be the person in the room who knows how to utilize business tools, utilities and software solutions from companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Zoom, Webex, Slack, social media platforms, etc. Invest an appropriate amount of time to learn the tools that make you the professional you are.

12.  Be Disciplined – Success is most often the result of purposeful, disciplined living and working. Purposeful means you make choices about what to sacrifice, and what to invest in in order to achieve a goal or objective. It also means identifying and practicing concepts, principals and rules that contribute to success like responsibility, commitment, dedication, hard/smart work, honesty, loyalty, cheerfulness, positive attitude, dependable, kind, ambitious, organized, etc.

13.  Build Confidence – Confidence has a big impact on a career. Many a person chooses lesser roles and responsibilities, and lesser lifetime earnings because they lack confidence. How do you replace a lack of confidence with an abundance? You invest in knowledge, gain experience, develop your skills and collect the right tools. When you have all these things in your possession - confidence comes easy. Go get'em!

14.  Make a Personal Business Plan – Treat your career and money-making potential as a business. Make a personal business plan. Give it a name. Design a logo. Make investments in the business-of-you. Market yourself and your abilities like a product. Regularly develop new products. Know the markets that most need your products and are willing to pay the most for them. Develop a personal brand, and look for ways to enhance your brand and brand recognition.

15.  Drink from the Fountain of Eternal Youth – Explore, celebrate, cheer, invent, take risks, be curious and embrace change. Purge grumpiness, cynicism, skepticism, bitterness, pride, resentment and jealousy from your life and place of work – they are poison to the soul and career. It’s not age that disqualifies many older people, but poisoned souls. Take naps. Smile, teach, build, pioneer and charge ahead with enthusiasm!

Tune in and watch my latest leadership interviews on RegalixTV.

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Kevin Benedict

SVP Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.

Website Regalix Inc.

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Leadership: The Plan for Winning in Digital Transformation

Last year the World Economic Forum labeled 2017 as the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. What value do we gain from defining industrial revolutions? I believe it is to define new sets of rules for winning in business. Let’s review the three previous industrial revolutions.

• Industrial Revolution #1. We move from reliance on animals, human muscles and biomass to the use of fossil fuels and mechanical power. A caveman/businessman wishing for a competitive advantage might be the first to use mechanical power fueled by fossil fuels to build cave-condos faster and cheaper than other Neanderthals.
• Industrial Revolution #2. Electricity is harnessed and distributed, both wireless and wired communication is developed, the synthesis of ammonia provides new fertilizers and harvests increase, and new forms of power generation are developed. A farmer wishing for competitive advantages could adopt mobile phones to communicate wirelessly with their workers, use lights around the farm to extend hours of operation, fertilizers could increase their production.
• Industrial Revolution #3. Digital systems are developed, communication and rapid advances in computing power achieved, which enable new ways of generating, processing and sharing information. A businessman operating a disco and seeking competitive advantages installs a digital cash register for more accurate cash management, buys an Apple Computer with the VisiCalc spreadsheet to better manage the business, and installs a heavy printer to print disco-oriented newsletters and other business documents from the office.
• Industrial Revolution #4. Billions of humans are connected by mobile devices and networks, surrounded by sensors, wearing wearables, supported by unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, which serves as the springboard for developments in artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing. A business woman seeking a competitive advantage decides to develop and rent out genetically-altered and custom-designed farm animals with embedded GPS sensors to urban dwellers by developing a mobile app connected to the internet where chatbots take your reservation and deliver the beasts in autonomous self-driving trucks pulling cattle trailers.